University of Dundee

Faculty Member, School of Computing

Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow

About

Problems often consist of choices. Making an optimal choice which is compatible with all other choices made is difficult. Constraint programming (CP) is the branch of Artificial Intelligence, where computers help us to make these choices.

Constraint programming is a multidisciplinary technology combining computer science, operational research and mathematics. Constraints arise in design & configuration, planning & scheduling, diagnosis & testing, and in many other contexts. CP can solve problems in telecommunication, e-commerce, electronics, bioinformatics, transportation, network management, supply chain management, and many other fields. My research is always very varied; I have looked at transport scheduling problems, satellite data processing problems and some problems from mathematics.

A constraint program consists of a set of variables, a set of possible values, for each variable and a set of constraints. For example, the problem might be to fit components (values) to circuit boards (variables), subject to the constraint that no two components can be overlapping. A solution to a CSP is an allocation of values to variables such that none of the constraints are violated.

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